+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Neal Boortz
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Bush in Normandy … Not a Clinton Repeat
I watched the television coverage of President Bush in Normandy yesterday. All in all, a good event. No posturing. No phony tears. No convenient stones on the beach.
Stones on the beach? Surely you remember, don't you? It happened during Clinton's visit to this very same spot on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Clinton wanted to go for a solitary stroll on the beach. Everyone else was to stay back ... just let him think. Let him reflect on the brave men who lived and died on that sand.
Clinton, of course, knew that the television news cameras were up there above the beach, recording every moment of his reflective walk. Clinton came upon a group of stones scattered on the beach. He stopped, knelt down and arranged the stones into the shape of a cross. Cameras rolling. What a moment! Who knows how many votes that amazing moment of reflectivity might have been worth in 1996. It certainly didn't hurt.
It was what the cameras didn't show that makes this story. The cameras weren't there earlier that day when a group of Clinton aides walked down that very same beach. The cameras weren't there when those aides stopped at the precise spot where Clinton would later fashion his rock cross. The cameras weren't rolling when those aides reached into their pockets, came out with some rocks, and scattered them on the beach.
And Why Do I Still Bring Up the Clintons?
Or, as the left would like to phrase it, "bash" the Clintons? Because they're still powerful, that's why. Bill is still corrupt. He's still a sociopath, and he's still without any moral scruples at all. Hillary is still a socialist, she's still a liar, she's still drunk with a desire for power ... and she intends to run for president.
They're dangerous, and I'll continue to point out their threat and their dishonesty as long as we are all around.
Thanks for the D-Day post.
("What if" in History - No. 3) June 1, 1944: NEW YORK TIMES breaks OPERATION OVERLORD
Free Republic ^ | 12/25/2005 | Origionally Posted by Doug from Upland
Posted on 06/06/2006 5:11:23 AM PDT by AirBorn
("What if" in History - No. 3) June 1, 1944: NEW YORK TIMES breaks OPERATION OVERLORD DFU "what if" in history | June 1, 1944 | Jonathon Risen (fictitious name)
Posted on 12/26/2005 7:15:58 PM PST by doug from upland
===========================================================================
Jonathon Risen, New York Times Dateline: France June 1, 1944
The NEW YORK TIMES, always first with breaking news, has discovered that a daring invasion is planned on the coast of France on June 5 in an effort to liberate the courageous and valiant French citizens from the Nazis. If the weather conditions are not right, we have learned that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower may delay the invasion for a day.
OPERATION OVERLORD will be a massive Allied invasion of Western Europe that will include simultaneous landings on five beachheads by U.S., British, and Canadian forces.
When Eisenhower's chief meteorologist, James Martin Stagg, informs the general of a break in the weather, Eisenhower will announce -- “O.K. We'll go.”
Within hours of the decision to go, an armada of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other ships, and 500 naval vessels--escorts and bombardment ships--will began to leave English ports. At night, 822 aircraft, carrying parachutists or towing gliders, will roar overhead to the Normandy landing zones. They will be just a fraction of the air armada of 13,000 aircraft that will support "D-Day."
The largest of the D-Day assault areas, Omaha Beach, stretches over 10 km (6 miles) between the fishing port of Port-en-Bessin on the east and the mouth of the Vire River on the west. The western third of the beach is backed by a seawall 3 metres (10 feet) high, and the whole beach is overlooked by cliffs 30 metres high.
Utah Beach is the westernmost beach of the planned five landing areas. It will be assaulted by elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. In the pre-dawn hours, units of the 82nd and 101st airborne division will be airdropped inland from the landing beach. Their plan is to isolate the seaborned invasion force from defending German units.
Sword Beach is the easternmost beach of the five landing areas of the planned invasion. It will be assaulted by units of the British 3rd Division, with French and British commandos attached. Shortly after midnight on D-Day morning, elements of the 6th Airborne Division will launch a daring glider-borne assault, hoping to seize bridges inland from the beach and also silence artillery pieces that could threaten the seaborne landing forces.
H-Hour (the time the first assault wave is to land) at Gold Beach is set for 0725 hours, one hour later than the scheduled landings on the American beaches owing to the direction of the tide, which move from west to east and bring high water later to the British beach.
Juno Beach is the second beach from the east among the five landing areas of the invasion. The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division will invade Juno Beach.
Sources have told us that this invasion could be the beginning of the end for the Nazis. Although TIMES editors held a meeting to discuss whether this information should be reported, it was decided unanimously that it is news and our first obligation is to journalism and reporting the story. We do hope, of course, that Allied casualties are kept to a minimum.
Count on the NEW YORK TIMES for all your war coverage. If it's news, we will have it first.
He moved aft, and moments later the ramp drops and German machine guns rake the boat. Capt. killed immediately, along with everyone else in the front. The boat had stopped a bit short of the beach and when several of the guys jumped, they were over their heads and the equipment pulled them down...
Mike became the Capt. and he and the rest were pinned down for almost 2 days by machine gun fire. He said it was a living hell.
November 14, 2006
The Smugness of the War’s Opponents
By Dennis Prager
In this week’s New York Times Book Review, a historian reviewing a major new work of 20th-century history, Oxford and Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson’s “The War of the World,” notes that “Ferguson argues that the Western powers should have gone to war in 1938, which would most likely have avoided much of the horror of World War II . . . . “
Imagine that. The New York Times publishes a favorable book review of a book arguing that a pre-emptive war in 1938 would have saved tens of millions of lives aside from preventing the Holocaust, “without parallel . . . the most wicked act in all history.”
You have to wonder if the Times’ editors and all their allies on the Left, who have spent the last four years mocking the very notion of pre-emptive war, read this review.
Whatever incapacity for self-doubt George W. Bush’s critics charge him with, it has been more than matched by his political enemies. They are as certain as human beings can be that the invasion of Iraq was wrong from the outset because no nation should ever engage in a pre-emptive war, since such wars, they contend, are inherently immoral, not to mention illegal.
They know that Saddam never had weapons of mass destruction, and they know that even if he were working on acquiring such weapons, he would never have used them or shared them with Islamic terrorists. They know this despite these facts:
Virtually every intelligence service believed that Saddam either had or was working on attaining WMD.
Saddam Hussein had already used biological weapons against his own people.
Saddam refused to allow UN inspectors unfettered access to Iraq, even when he had every reason to believe that America would attack him.
Saddam gave $25,000 to the families of Palestinian terrorists who blew up Israelis.
Saddam had already invaded two countries, attempting to eliminate one from the map (Kuwait) and killing a million in the other (Iran).
President Bush had very good reason to believe then, and we have very good reason to believe now, that Saddam was indeed seeking uranium from the African country of Niger.
Given these facts, George W. Bush believed that a pre-emptive strike was the moral thing to do, just as any moral person now understands it would have been moral to do against Hitler’s Germany in 1938.
Given the same facts, his critics were/are at least as certain that such a war has been wrong strategically and morally.
They now argue that obviously they are right.
But it is not so obvious. It is overwhelmingly likely that even if we had found WMD in Iraq, The New York Times, Michael Moore and nearly all college professors would have still opposed the invasion. After all, they would have argued, it was still a pre-emptive war and therefore wrong by definition; and besides, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
Of course, the critics look right because we hardly seem to be winning the war in Iraq. But even here the critics are too smug. We have not won the war in Iraq because of something completely unforeseeable: widespread massacres of Iraqi civilians by other Iraqis and Muslims. We have never seen mass murder of fellow citizens in order to remove an outside occupier. No Japanese blew up Japanese temples in order to rid Japan of the American occupier. No Germans mass murdered German schoolchildren and teachers to rid Germany of the American, British, French and Soviet occupiers.
The level of cruelty and evil exhibited by those America is fighting in Iraq is new. Had Iraq followed any precedent in all the annals of resistance to occupation, America would likely have been victorious in Iraq. It may just be impossible, if one is morally bound not to kill large numbers of civilians, to fight those who target their own civilians and hide among them. But George W. Bush had no way to foresee such systematic cruelty.
With the election of a Democratic Congress and the reversion to the visionless “realists” of George W. Bush’s father’s administration, the critics are more certain than ever of their moral rectitude. But unless they disagree with Professor Ferguson’s assertion that a pre-emptive war in 1938 would have been the most moral thing the Western democracies could have done, they ought to show a little humility. Based on what was known at the time, George W. Bush made a moral choice. And he would have won were it not for something new in the annals of human depravity.
THANK YOU AMERICA! Free Europeans don’t forget the heroes buried at Coleville-sur-Meer and St.James.
As a big history nut, my kids know all about things like this. On behalf of my entire family to the greatest generation:
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Bumping this thread for this historic day.
Here are some of the men we should thank for our freedom — http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.aol.com/medalcol/images/cornwell.jpg&imgrefurl=http://members.aol.com/__121b_9KvKt082k%2Bejff3A9avVmUEh8w9X/1%2BoB06kr1zcItWgKt6ar7PTJ2UDuDVuj67J&h=400&w=418&sz=27&hl=en&start=15&sig2=totTlOyz2Jr2j5Z7bofZWg&tbnid=SMxp3ClJjfaGrM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=125&ei=ac5mRoLICYLggQPO4zw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dclinton%2Bnormandy%2Bbeach%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
I loved your post Doug! Where do you think I got my Ping List? You did an absolutely marvelous job. Thank You! Every year my respect for our Military grows and grows.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) D-Day Message
Order of the Day: 6 June 1944
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
To my uncle Bill(still living)Warner(and all) who was there, on the beach: Thanks.
That is becoming one of my new pet peeves.
The Greatest Generation did NOT save the world from the Nazis.
An amazing group of men and women, a subset of that generation, saved the world from the Nazis.
The vast majority of the elderly who today are whining for free drugs and other goodies had precious little to do with the task of ridding the world of that tyranny.
I must be argumentative this morning, or something. Have a good day Doug and I hope that you have taken measures to protect yourself after the recent airplane attack. Stay away from Parks and planes. We need you around here.
